On the morning of February 22nd, eBay shut down all active and scheduled listings for Robin's Relief Benefit Auction, an emergency effort to aid Robin Sullins, a self-employed, uninsured Austin mother-of-four bitten Christmas day while trying to break up a family dog squabble. Robin is currently recuperating from amputation of both legs and all fingers due to a rare blood disease transferred from the dog bite. Her story has touched the heart of millions of dog lovers, and has been covered by Inside Edition, Fox News, ABC, NBC, The New York Daily News, MSNBC, and many others. Artists around the world donated their time, talents and artwork in support of Robin's recovery. Volunteers with Duirwaigh Studios donated hundreds of hours over two months to coordinate the auction.

No notice or warning was given by eBay, no explanation provided. By killing the auction, Robin's Relief lost hundreds of bids and watchers, as well as the volunteer man hours devoted to generate the listings themselves. Thousands of dollars in bids were lost. Hard won advertising, social media and online coverage were lost due to broken links made invalid by eBay's removal of listings.

In the end, eBay did not restore the bids nor the listings. After lifting the ban on the auction, eBay asserted that volunteers working for Robin's Relief would have to relist all auctions on their own time. After sending 3 faxes, five emails, and spending 8 hours on the phone with dozens of operators in multiple departments at eBay to rectify the situation, Robin's Relief volunteers did just that.

We are asking eBay to refund all listing fees associated with Robin's Relief Benefit Auction and to donate all final value fees. Further, we ask eBay to apologize to Duirwaigh Studios (the host of the benefit auction), and the family of Robin Sullins, by donating to Robin's Relief Fund on www.RobinSullins.com